@_stefaniaferri

21 years old

Lodi, Italy

How has your everyday-life changed? What do you do to fulfill your day?

My life in this period has radically changed. Before, I used to go regularly from my city to Milan to attend university courses and this activity took up most of my day. I was waiting for the weekend to enjoy time with my friends, to relax and live the classic Saturday night out. This sudden stop (if isolated from the dramatic situation) initially seemed a cure-all: I concluded the first part of my thesis without distractions, I followed the online lessons while sitting comfortably at my desk and I passed the exams from my bedroom ... The days went by in this strange state of suspension, while I was doing research, digitally leafing through magazines and finally finding the time to do those things that are always postponed due to lack of time, such as watching "that film" that must be seen at least once in life. Then, I established a completely new relationship with my mother: we have lunch and dinner together, we sit to chat, watch and comment on the news and in the evening we do binge-watch a lot of TV series to distract us from daily work.

Your work is built on creativity. While we’re all in quarantine, what is your solution to keep on being creative? Where do you find your inspiration in this moment?

I feel lucky to live in an era where technology allows us to do a million different things. Of course, we are immobilized on many fronts, but thanks to Internet we can do a lot and we cannot afford to be bored. I am passionate about cinema, I am watching films that for lack of time I have never been able to see. There are many magazines that can be read online, MoMA has even put online completely free courses. I listen to podcasts, explore digital archives and try to create content to enrich my portfolio.

What is your biggest fear right now?

I am afraid that the efforts made so far will not be useful in the short term, also considering the economic problems of the fashion industry. I am conscious that it will be very hard to find a job, I am ready to expect low remuneration but I still have the determination to find my place in society. What happened, however, went beyond any worst expectations. My biggest fear is therefore to have given all of myself to make a dream come true and then to see it vanish for reasons beyond my control.

What will you do once all of this is over?

I would now try to be positive by saying that I would like to think that what happened will change our predisposition, allowing us to give more value to life. We have all been touched by death and I hope we will look at the world differently; we also touched what it means to be deprived of fundamental freedoms and perhaps this will allow us to fully enjoy one of the most precious gifts that every human being possesses, precisely that freedom.

We realized that our society is fragile, exposed to risks of out of control events; the world will have to equip itself because it will happen again and we will have to take into account a possible reduction of our privacy.